There are bards in the game now, but not currently any that we see fight. This doesn't necessarily mean they can't. It also doesn't mean they must fit into any specific pre-existing archetype. It may be true that bards in other games are buffbots or rogue clones, but WoW is not "other games." If they choose to make a bard class, due to the lack of in-game precedent they have latitude to make it just about anything. Bards are a blank page waiting to be written on.

The suggestion that magic music doesn't fit in the setting, however, must be made in ignorance of all of the music and sound-based spells used by both players and mobs in the game - and I'm not referring to the Tauren Chieftans here. Priests use various hymns which have effect specifically because they inspire the listener. Warriors use shouts. Death Knights blow a horn to apply their buff. Those leather-worked war drums back in TBC which buffed the raid. None of these are out of place. Then you've got the sound-based enemies, such as the boss in Halls of Origination whose single most destructive attack was a song, or the various sound-based spells in Heart of Fear, also extremely dangerous. There's even an elemental lord of sound, capable of destroying worlds with a mere whisper.

The word "epic" is derived from a Greek word meaning speech, word or song. Song magic in folklore is ancient, powerful stuff. Tolkein's Middle Earth was literally sung into existence. It doesn't deserve the stigma it seems to have gotten.

Why try to give potential Bards their own buffs? Why not make their songs enhance already existing buffs? Give them a repertoire of abilities like this: One that enhances flask potency, one that enhances beneficial buff potency, one that enhances DoT duration, one that enhances healing effectiveness, etc. All of these could be set up to be done within a certain range of the Bard or as a forward facing cone. Give them the ability to have three active at a time, something like this: one vocal and two instrumental, say melody and harmony, and the instrumental are interrupted by movement. Weapons would be instruments, and it wouldn't be so much pew pew as tralalalala anyway. Make it all stacked and DoT-based, where the more ticks you get in a period of time the stronger the buff/ability would be (this would apply to both beneficial and damage song combinations). You could get critical ticks and haste would definitely play a role. You could even base this on either attack power or spell power, or one for either spec, take your pick.

For specs, you can have one that centers on melee survivability, with songs centered on enhancing melee and tanks (enhancing heals received, melee-only haste, etc) while you could have another that helps ranged... slightly more haste, mana regen, healing effectiveness, DoT duration, etc having better ranged survivability (slightly enhanced run speed and possibly ranged mitigation). I don't know about a third spec, maybe a mixture of the two? The class's DPS could count as DoTs themselves (WoW bosses are known to hate hair band rock ballads).

Give them a Hero/Lust equivalent: Rock Band. The raid benefits from the Hero/Lust haste ability and the Bard's abilities would stack more and be more potent during the time the ability is active.

I see where you're coming from, but you'll get yourself a class with absolutely zero solo ability, every raid would need one (and only one), every group of five wouldn't want one...
You're basically making a class that can't pull its own weight, is necessary only for one single aspect of the game, and will be a hindrance to all other aspects.

The class would work in a non-competitive set-up, such as Dungeons and Dragons tabletop (where you'll always be in a party because you're never playing by yourself), but WoW is a competitive game.

Bottom line: A 'bard' in WoW would either turn out to be a dps/healer class that won't look much like what we'd think of as a bard at all, or it would be something completely useless to the game, but mandatory in a single set-up (and even then, remember: Bringing more than one bard for your raid will only hold people back).
Either way, it'll be something nobody wants.

Even though I voted yes I don't really want to play a stinking bard. What I want is one or more true full support specs in the game. With group restricted unique buffs and debuffs, lots of utility and the DPS of a tank with the strength and uptime of said buffs and debuffs depending on performance. I was truly pissed when Blizz claimed people didn't like playing support at the end of BC and just destroyed everything I liked about enhancement shaman and shadow priest. Because I certainly did. This would actually get me back to regular raiding.

Even though I voted yes I don't really want to play a stinking bard. What I want is one or more true full support specs in the game. With group restricted unique buffs and debuffs, lots of utility and the DPS of a tank with the strength and uptime of said buffs and debuffs depending on performance. I was truly pissed when Blizz claimed people didn't like playing support at the end of BC and just destroyed everything I liked about enhancement shaman and shadow priest. Because I certainly did. This would actually get me back to regular raiding.

Support has no place in WoW now or in the future. Unlike other games, they see fit to tell us that bringing mandatory classes to enhance the rest of the raid isn't fair to any parties involved. Not only would there be high competition for the support slots, but less normal spots for the other people.

It works great in games that tailor the experience for diversity and are ok with group comps 'not being fair', but it doesn't work in a game that is trying to please everyone all the time. It just has no place in WoW anymore.

Of course it could work. They'd have to add new lore to support them, but then again, they have to do that for any class they want to add, even if it already exists in lore. Mechanically though, I have no idea, but I'm sure they could come up with something. I highly doubt we'll ever see a bard class, but like any other class, they can make it work.

Originally Posted by Tya

As a warlock, allow me to be the first to say that I get tremendous amounts of joy from watching fear pathing take you to Africa.

Originally Posted by Drayarr

Twinking is like going back to school when you are 30, just to be smarter than the other kids.

(Translation: "I'll cover with this song that goes something like this..." )

Meaning it would look really stupid and out of place, which it would be. I usually don't come into these kinds of threads and poo-poo ideas I don't like, but I have to for this one...it's just so horrible.

I'm not sure if there is some unspoken maturity bar that must be reached to understand how Pandaren are not a joke or what.

They were an April Fool's joke from the beginning. I'm not sure how much more blatant you can be about joking.
I'm not one of the "Die pandas die!" people, nor do I hate jokes. But to me they are as I said: a joke that the community loves and so a joke that the community was given. Same as Bard would be (in fact, Bard has been announced as an April Fool's joke in its own right, so we're not too far off).

It's not totally unlike that whole My Little Pony thing. Part of the love is surely ironic and started off as a joke, and part is because they actually enjoy the content.

I'm not sure if there is some unspoken maturity bar that must be reached to understand how Pandaren are not a joke or what. It's like Global Warming. Even presented with factual evidence, people would rather continue spouting their own false beliefs to the masses.

Evidence. Factual. "False beliefs". lol

The pandaren are the dumbest looking race to ever be put into wow, hands down. Also, the fact that Blizz expects us to actually care about them and take them seriously only compounds their ridiculousness. It's not about maturity, it's looking at pandas in-game and thinking, "wow, really, that is the stupidest looking race of all time."

I'd been caring less and less about the story since wrath ended, but at this point, I just flatout do not give a shit about all this pandas, mogus, and sha nonsense that got hackneyed into the "lore". Maybe next expansion they'll actually work with a theme and characters people care about and put this panda nonsense to rest and then maybe try to redeem themselves. Probably not. Probably will have completely stopped caring by that point, anyway.

On topic lol: a class that does nothing but buff other people while doing mediocre heals/dps does not interest me whatsoever. I love my paladin and the utility it brings, but to be given essentially neutered version of that class with nothing but buffs and insubstantial heals/dps? No, thanks.

I would love bards, support class would find a niche in WoW, not pure healer, not pure dps, but somewhere between, with usefull buffs for all your team.
I have no idea why so many people lack basic imagination and say things like - "omg, how he's going to dps with music? lolloololoo;" when in other games it worked pretty fine.

They were an April Fool's joke from the beginning. I'm not sure how much more blatant you can be about joking.
I'm not one of the "Die pandas die!" people, nor do I hate jokes. But to me they are as I said: a joke that the community loves and so a joke that the community was given. Same as Bard would be (in fact, Bard has been announced as an April Fool's joke in its own right, so we're not too far off).

It's not totally unlike that whole My Little Pony thing. Part of the love is surely ironic and started off as a joke, and part is because they actually enjoy the content.

Actually the race wasn't an April fool's joke. Announcing them as the new WoW race in April was the April Fool's joke.

I'm afraid I wasn't much of a PC gamer back in those days, I've just been informed via third parties.
Is WoWpedia wrong then?

'Pedia' sites don't really give you a whole story unless you read all of them and then compile your own evidence. There was a Blizzcast where they explain the 'origin' of the Pandaren concept and it originated with Samwise Didier as art. He speaks about his nickname being a panda because he's a big hairy, but gentle guy. He then drew real artwork of the first ideas for these characters. Just because it was then tasked to be used as an April Fools joke which received overwhelming positive response from fans, doesn't mean that it was a joke that got added to the game.

Just because it was used as a joke doesn't mean it is a joke. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Additionally, most people talk like their whole origin was just a joke and they put a bunch of BS together to make Mists. In fact they started creating the lore back in WC3 days, pretty much instantly after the concept was widely received. Who knows how many other ideas have been born from this style of development?

Maybe stuffed crust pizza was just thrown out there as a crazy idea, but then test groups loved it. So stuffed crust was born. We have no idea. It's a pretty childish and dismissive gesture to use the whole 'but it's a joke' in defense of disliking Pandaren. Mature people realize creative works/art aren't subject to the same cause and effect thinking.

It's fine to not like it. But to claim that Pandaren are for children or that they are just a joke is illogical and unfounded.

PS - There are several features that we have now or were supposed to have 'based' on April Fools announcements. The dance battles are basically the dance studio that everyone cried about because we still haven't gotten it.

Also, druids as rideable mounts was part of the 2011 April Fools. A year later, oh look rideable druids.

You mean the threads which you create to troll other people, saying how Demon Hunter will never be an own class or how good a 4th spec would be?

Another thing that gets me is the general chat when inside the Garrison. It totally reminds me of every prison film I've ever watched. The prisoners confined to their cells are talking to each other through the walls. Their chat is mostly pointless, vulgar and revolving around stuff they ll do once they get out. This is EXACTLY the content of every Garrison chat I've ever had to tolerate.

I'm still getting the idea that you think I hate jokes or something...
I never said that they were for children either. I'm definitely feeling like you're talking to someone behind my back...

No, you're just thinking because I'm using your quotes that I'm directing every word I type to you. I'm using your declaration of the concepts being jokes to speak to the whole discourse. There's a much larger conversation that has been going on since the Mists reveal than ours.

A bard is a stock RPG class which incorporates music into its fighting style. They appear in quite a lot of fiction as storytellers who join a band of heroes in order to immortalize their deeds in the form of an epic. Typical implementations have bards which act as support for other classes, playing songs to buff allies and debuff and control enemies. This isn't necessarily the extent of what they can do, however. This is a pretty good summary of the sorts of things music can do in this sort of setting.

Originally Posted by RicardoZ

It would work like this:

(Translation: "I'll cover with this song that goes something like this..." )

And a mage would work like a fellow standing next to the one with the guitar throwing tennis balls and screaming "FIREBALL! LIGHTNING BOLT!" over and over again. And be totally out of place.

to e honest i want a class that uses plate armor with spiri and intell(a plate wearer using mana to cast various spells through his weapon to melee wit seems cool) besides the only class that uses that gear now is holy paladins its about time they get competition for that gear

only just now in mists of pandaria does any healer compete with another class for gear, and that is just druids and monks. Priests don't compete with anything else for spirit cloth gear. Shaman don't compete with anyone else for intellect mail gear. And as such, paladins don't compete for plate int gear.